William Hocking, Alford Professor, Dies at Age 92

William E. Hocking '01, Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, Emeritus, died Sunday at his home in Madison, N.H. He was 92.

Hocking, who retired in 1943, was the author of The Meaning of God in Human Experience, published in 1912. The book established Hocking as one of the lead-American philosophers of his time was described as "one of the most original, profound, and enduringly important works of this century in the borderland between philosophy and theology."

Hocking studied philosophy at Harvard under the "Philosophical Four"-- Josiah Royce, George Herbert Palmer, William James, and George Santayana-- provided a link to their era. His own creed was once defined as "idealist in the tradition of Royce and pragmatist in the tradition of James."

A man who applied his philosophy to religion, ethics, education, and politics-- always with warmth and clarity--Hocking believed that "philosophy is the common man's business, and until it reaches common man and answers his question is not doing its duty."

He also reached his educated colleagues, however, and they elected him to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an organization limited to 50 members of the Nation Institute of Arts and Letters.

Services for him will be held at 3 p.m. tomorrow in Madison Corner Church, in Madison, N.H. Hocking's son-in-law, Bishop Donald J. Campbell of the Episcopal Theoogical Seminary in Cambridge, will conduct them.